THE INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL TIMBER ORGANIZATION AND CONSERVATIONIST FORESTRY NORMS: A BRIDGE TOO FAR

Gerry J. Nagtzaam, Monash University

Abstract

This article explores the attempts to create an global tropical timber regime and examines its underlying competing environmental norms of exploitation, conservation and preservation. It outlines a history of forestry exploitation over time and tracks the stilted development of a global tropical timber regime. It further examines the development of the International Tropical Timber Agreement and its concomitant Organisation. Legro’s test of the robustness of a norm is applied to the tropical timber regime to determine when and why, and through whose agency, normative change has not been effected within the International Tropical Timber Organisation where conservationist norms have failed to take root.